Denver, New York Former US President Donald Trump has reported an FBI search of his private club Mar-a-Lago. Trump is said not to have been in Florida, where he has his main residence, at the time of the search, the news channel CNN reported. He is currently in New York.
Why officers from the US federal police searched his vacation resort in the state of Florida was initially not clear from his statement on Monday. The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment on the statement.
Trump was as usual polemical in his press release. Mar-a-Lago, a private golf club and hotel complex for wealthy Americans, “is currently being occupied by a large number of FBI agents,” according to the Republican, who lost his 2020 re-election to Democrat Joe Biden. “They even got access to my safe.”
Ironically, the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, was appointed by Trump himself. However, the former president has repeatedly emphasized in the past that this was a mistake.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
The usually well-informed New York Times quotes two people familiar with the investigation. As a result, the investigation appears to be focusing on material Trump brought with him to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House. According to a person familiar with their contents, the boxes that were taken should have contained “many pages of secret documents”.
Secret documents in Florida
Trump has previously delayed the return of material requested by the US National Archives. Trump only returned the 15 boxes in question in January. In February, however, the administration of the National Archives told a congressional committee that the former president continued to store classified government records at his Florida home and was in contact with the Justice Department on the matter.
“Having worked and cooperated with the appropriate authorities, this unannounced raid on my home was neither necessary nor appropriate,” Trump said Monday night. It was an attempt to dissuade him from running for president again in 2024.
Referring to the “Watergate” scandal, in which agents close to Republican President Richard Nixon broke into the Democratic Party headquarters, Trump declared: “Here the Democrats broke into the house of the 45th President of the United States in reverse.”
Many details about the aim of the search by the FBI agents were not initially known. The search took place on Monday morning, reports the “New York Times.” It was used at least in part to determine whether documents were still available in the club, according to a person familiar with the search.
Former CIA and FBI agent Tracy Walder believes the FBI informed the Secret Service, which is responsible for Trump’s personal security, before the search. “Different federal security agencies don’t like to get in each other’s way. Therefore, the FBI will have deliberately waited for a day when Trump was not in Mar-a-Lago, ”said Walder in the evening on NBC.
In order to obtain the search warrant, the FBI had to convince the competent court that they would most likely find evidence of illegal activities. That was obviously successful. The US evening news spoke of a “historic event,” an “event unprecedented in American history.”
Investigations after the storming of the Capitol
The US Department of Justice recently intensified the survey of former Trump employees. They witnessed Trump’s attempts to remain in office after his defeat in the 2020 election.
The ex-president of the USA is said not to have stayed there.
(Photo: Reuters)
For example, federal prosecutors were investigating an alleged plan to send bogus voters to the US Congress to certify the results of the election. On the day of this formal act, January 6, 2021, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in what is now considered one of the blackest days in US democracy.
However, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites people familiar with the process, the search is independent of the investigation into the events surrounding January 6, 2021.
Trump only increased his verbal attacks on investigators at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas on Saturday. CPAC is an influential right-wing organization that regularly invites prominent conservatives with radical views to its conferences. Trump owes much of his political success to her.
In his speech, which lasted a good two hours, he repeated old conspiracy theories and called on his followers to fight for direction. The country is being “destroyed more from within than from without,” Trump said. It is “on the edge of an abyss”. It is “our movement that can save the country.” Trump, however, left open whether he wanted to run for president again.
With agency material.
More: Trump’s combative appearance in Texas reveals the inner turmoil of Republicans